ISIS “IS” and Iraqi Christians!

THE terrorist Islamic State which has remained in the path of brutality, is still able to produce videos and movies and influencing younger people and deceiving them to take its path. This is what we have seen recently in New York and in Boston areas, where people are being dragged into this dark mentality and influenced to carry on attacks on security forces and plot to harm vital institutions.

As usual, I attribute all this to the lack of informative media machine in the west to stop these actions. Intelligence communities have failed to stop the intellectual influence on simple people who have no idea what ISIS is doing. In return we are willing to spend billions of dollar to build casinos, but we are unable to spend some thousands of dollars to speak to the younger generation through a TV station or through a Radio station and teach them how to focus on building their lives and stay away from the twisted paths of ISIS! all this and we still haven’t taken measurements to protect our people for the next 5 or 10 years!

I will leave the role of being critic to the Intelligence communities and the government in the United States and focus on an important topic that I have seen recently! Yes, it is a new ISIS video release, well it is not new, but the aim of this post is to show how weak ISIS propaganda is, and how easily we can refute all their ways of thinking and bring it to ruins. Unlike some statements of US officials in which they magnify and make big deal of ISIS – we are the ones who are making them that scary monster, while in fact, they are just cartoons in thinking!

(Until There Came to Them Clear Evidence) – this was the title of the release that focused on Christian people and on Christianity during different stages. The narrator was talking about Jesus as one of the great prophets according to Islam, and that he is one among those who endured suffering. But, as usual the denial of Jesus’ deity is evident and excerpts of the Quran are taken to deny him as God, but only a prophet and human!

The narrator says in this release that Jews had a plot against Jesus, and they “Killed Him” – but they killed him not nor crucified him. but the resemblance of Isa (Jesus) put on another man! or in another translation is says ” So it was made to appear to them” – so ISIS had fallen in big mistake by saying “Jews plotting against him and killed him” and then they deny “his” own crucifixion by putting resemblance of Jesus on someone else. Now, Quran doesn’t say that! or at least Muslim commentators don’t agree with that, because they deny the totality of Crucifixion. They say it never happened neither to Jesus, nor to anyone else! The words “appeared to them” has two interpretations from two different Islamic schools, one school says that Christ was crucified but never dead – like the Ahmadya Muslims – and the other school says that God put the resemblance of Jesus on someone else – and here ISIS fell in the trap of which interpretation they should adopt, because there are significant number of well respected commentators disagree with them on this issue, but they chose not to mention these scholars!

As we continue, the narrator says that “Jesus was raised in Nazareth, and God have filled Jesus with wisdom and taught him “Injel” the Bible! then after few sketches – the narrator starts explaining the history of Christianity and mentions that “During the first until the fourth century, many “Injels” bibles appeared which have not been taught by Jesus”! and a simple question to refute this theory is where Jesus’ “Injel” that God had taught him in Nazareth?! what happened to it? Because Christians believe that Bibles were inspired by God to chosen people! And also the narrator escapes the fact that some of the Bible writers have lived during the time of Christ as witnesses. It’s also important to note that there is no Islamic reference to what are the names of Jesus’ “Companions” even though they are mentioned in the Quran several times.

Another Dilemma that the narrator of ISIS falls in, is mentioning that one of the Caesars had embraced Christianity in the “Fourth Century” this is when Christian religion, as he says, becomes mixed of truth and falsehood, and there appeared who believed in the doctrine of the Trinity. Well, in the 4th century there was the “First Council of Nicaea” in which the main accomplishments of this council were to confront Arius and Arianism which had deviated from right path of Christianity in considering Jesus only a human being and a prophet – therefore, Christians have settled this matter centuries before the existence of Islam and explained the relationship between Son of God and God the Father.

Again, the problem with ISIS propaganda is that they don’t read history! The concept of Trinity existed even before Christianity! it was evident in the Old Testament, and also in the oldest manuscript of the New Testament. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word “Elohem” was mentioned Thousands of times for “God” and also the word “Adonai” these both words come in plural form of noun in Hebrew and reflect on the truth of Trinity. Several other passages speak of the “Faces” or “Presences” or “Persons” of God (Exodus 33:14, Deuteronomy 4:37, and Job 13:8).

In the New Testament, there are several verses which speak about the connection between Father, Son, and Spirit:

* Matthew (Go therefore and make discipleship of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit) – Matthew’s Gospel is believed to be written in the first century, three hundred years before what ISIS video suggest to be the manifestation of the doctrine of Trinity.

The narrator also accuses Christians of being disbelievers, and “Kaffir” because they are, as he says, a nation deviated from the benevolent religion of Monotheism. While in fact, Christians have always called for Monotheism in their beliefs – shortly I mention James’ Epistle in which he says in chapter 2 verse 19: “You believe in one God, you do well, even the demons believe this and they tremble of fear”!

Time comes in this weak release to show ISIS’ victims, here I would like to note that the victims of this release were all Christians from Syria, from Raqa province, and the majority are Armenians. They appeared weary, weak, and frightened! They have been paying “Jizzya” the Islamic Tribute in return of their safety and life – there are few options given to Christians, Converting to Islam, Paying Jizzya or face death! by the way, one condition to pay Jizzya is that you have to give it with great “humiliation” and disgrace, so you won’t appear exalted over any other Muslim. It’s a way of psychological torture that ISIS use, originated in Quran and Islamic teachings to spread fear and be in control.

In contrast to that, the speaker appearing in this release talks about Christians from Mosul, who have not became submissive to ISIS and refuse to either convert to Islam, or pay Jizzya – instead, they escaped and refrained from giving money in which later be used fund terrorist activities in Iraq, Syria, and even around the globe. So I stand in respect and salute Iraqi Christians for not allowing themselves to be humiliated or forced to do something they don’t want to do!

So what was the punishment of Iraqi Christians in return? Well, ISIS did not leave them alone, but they took their houses and stole their possessions as bounties of war, it is truly legitimate and just, according to the speaker. The Christian churches and monasteries were destroyed in Mosul, they were looted and stolen. The history repeat itself, this is what happened to the Christians when Muslims invaded Iraq and Egypt, and now is repeated in the 21st century.

The question remains? how long is this ordeal going to last? where do we stand from the sacrifices other people are doing for us? I still say it over and over – we are as Americans are doing nothing to stop the propaganda machine of ISIS, there is still more to do to stop the influence of such weak entity that can easily extracted as malignant tumor!